Chapter 37: The Messenger in the Palace
Alexei was the one who spotted the servant first, ducking into a side corridor with the particular hurried grace of someone who didn’t want their route remembered.
He didn’t say anything immediately. He simply followed, silent despite his armor, two centuries of military training making him considerably better at stealth than his size suggested he should be.
He found Ryuji and Selene in their guest chamber an hour later, expression tight, crimson eyes sharp with information he clearly wanted to share carefully.
"I saw something," he said. "A servant, moving through the eastern wing well after the household should have retired. I followed at a distance."
"And," Ryuji said.
"He delivered a message. Not to a guest chamber. To a private study belonging to Lady Ceris Ashford."
Selene’s breath caught, sharp. "Ceris is here. In Aldenmarch."
"She serves the diplomatic corps at court, does she not? It should not surprise us that she resides here." Alexei’s jaw tightened. "What concerns me is who sent the message she received."
"Who," Ryuji asked, though the old machinery in his head had already begun assembling an answer he didn’t like.
"I did not see the sender directly. But the servant wore livery belonging to Ashcroft’s own household staff, not the palace’s general service."
The room went quiet, the particular quiet of people recognizing a thread pulling tighter than expected.
"Her father sent her a message," Selene said slowly, "the same night we successfully turned his accusation against him in the throne room."
"That’s not a coincidence," Ryuji said. "That’s damage control. He’s trying to get to her before she hears our version of events."
[System Log: Day 52]
[LADY CERIS ASHFORD IS CONFIRMED PRESENT AT ALDENMARCH’S COURT]
[HER FATHER SENT HER A PRIVATE MESSAGE FOLLOWING HIS SETBACK IN THE THRONE ROOM]
[THIS SUGGESTS HE ANTICIPATES HER LOYALTY MAY BE UNSTABLE, CONSISTENT WITH HER OMITTED REPORT FOLLOWING HER VISIT TO THE ESTATE]
[THE HOUSEHOLD MUST NOW DECIDE WHETHER TO REACH HER FIRST OR ALLOW HER FATHER’S VERSION OF EVENTS TO SETTLE UNCHALLENGED]
[...]
[I HAVE BEGUN TRACKING THIS AS A RACE]
[I DO NOT KNOW WHO IS WINNING]
"We should speak with her," Selene said. "Before whatever her father has told her hardens into something we cannot reshape."
"That’s a risk," Alexei said. "If she reports the contact to Ashcroft, it confirms we’re actively courting his own daughter against him."
"She already omitted things from her report at the estate," Ryuji said. "That tells me she’s not simply his instrument anymore. Might be worth the risk."
They found her chambers within the hour, Selene’s status as a princess granting enough authority to move through the palace’s diplomatic wing without drawing unwanted attention, and knocked carefully on a door that opened only after a long, considering pause.
Ceris stood in the doorway, formal court dress replacing the traveling clothes she’d worn at the estate, blue eyes widening with genuine surprise at the sight of them.
"Princess Selene. Lord Volkris." She glanced quickly down the corridor before stepping back to let them enter. "This is unwise. If anyone reports you visiting my chambers at this hour, it will not help either of our positions."
"Then we’ll be brief," Ryuji said, stepping inside.
Her chambers were smaller than he’d expected for a duke’s daughter, tidy, sparse, the particular austerity of someone who preferred efficiency over comfort. A half-written letter sat on her desk, hastily covered by a book the moment she’d noticed their approach.
"Your father sent you a message tonight," Ryuji said. "After the throne room."
Ceris’s composure cracked slightly, surprise breaking through the careful diplomatic mask. "How do you know that."
"Alexei has excellent eyes," Selene said. "What did he tell you."
Ceris hesitated, weighing something behind her careful blue eyes, and for a long moment Ryuji thought she might refuse to answer entirely.
"He instructed me to distance myself from your household publicly," she said finally, quiet. "To confirm, if directly asked, that my visit revealed nothing suspicious, and to avoid any further contact with either of you until this matter with the King resolves."
"And will you," Selene asked.
Ceris didn’t answer immediately. She crossed to her desk instead, moved the book aside, and looked down at the half-finished letter beneath it, the same slow, deliberate hesitation Ryuji had watched her wear weeks ago at the estate’s kitchen table.
"I do not know," she admitted. "I have spent my whole life doing exactly what my father instructs, Lord Volkris. It has never once occurred to me to question it before this year."
"What changed," Ryuji asked, though he suspected he already knew.
"You did," she said, meeting his gaze directly. "Not you specifically. The estate. The way your wife touches your hand without needing an audience to justify it. The way your steward treats a wounded assassin with the same care he shows royalty. My father has never once shown me anything that honest in my entire life, and I did not understand what I was missing until I saw it in a house full of people who should, by every rule I was raised to believe, hate each other."
Selene’s expression softened, something warm and understanding replacing the careful political calculation she’d worn since entering the chamber.
"That is a great deal to carry," she said. "Discovering your father may not deserve the loyalty you have given him for so long."
"It is," Ceris agreed, voice tight. "And I do not know yet what to do with the discovery."
Ryuji watched her carefully, the old machinery in his head weighing exactly how much pressure to apply and how much to simply let sit, the particular skill of a man who’d spent a lifetime learning that people rarely changed their minds when pushed, only when given room to arrive at their own conclusions.
"You don’t have to decide tonight," he said. "You just have to decide whether you’re willing to keep watching honestly, instead of only reporting what he wants to hear."
Something in Ceris’s careful composure finally broke fully, and for a moment she looked considerably younger than her twenty-five years, exhausted in the particular way of someone carrying a weight they’d never expected to carry alone.
"I can watch," she said quietly. "I can promise that much."
Selene reached out, an unexpected gesture, and rested her hand briefly on Ceris’s arm, the particular warmth she’d learned to offer over months of building an unlikely family out of assassins and demons and classless men.
"Thank you," she said. "That is more than we had reason to expect."
Ceris looked at the hand on her arm, at the sincerity in Selene’s violet eyes, and something in her carefully controlled expression cracked further, gratitude and confusion tangled together in equal measure.
"I do not understand why you trust me," she said. "I am still his daughter. Still capable of betraying whatever trust you extend."
"You could have told him everything the first visit," Ryuji said. "You didn’t. That’s not proof of loyalty to us. But it’s proof you’re capable of choosing something other than what he wants."
They left shortly after, careful to time their departure when the corridors ran empty, and Selene remained quiet until they’d returned safely to their own guest chamber, the weight of the conversation settling heavily between them.
"She is more alone than I realized," Selene said finally. "Trained her entire life for a role that apparently never once made her feel valued for who she actually is."
"Sounds familiar," Ryuji said.
Selene looked at him sharply, understanding the comparison immediately. "You mean myself."
"I mean both of you," he said. "Different fathers, same lesson. Duty first, feelings never."
Something in her expression softened, and she crossed the small distance between them, resting her head against his chest with the particular ease she’d built over weeks of quiet, unguarded moments neither of them announced to anyone else.
"You saw that in her," she said. "Before I did."
"I’ve had practice," he said. "Recognizing people who learned to survive without ever being asked what they actually wanted."
Selene tilted her head up to look at him, violet eyes catching the low candlelight, something warm and searching in her expression.
"Ryuji."
"What."
"What did you want. Before Avarthos. Before any of this."
He was quiet for a long moment, the old machinery in his head working through an answer he rarely allowed himself to examine directly.
"I don’t remember anymore," he admitted. "I spent so long surviving that wanting things stopped feeling useful."
"And now."
He looked at her, at the fog visible through the guest chamber’s narrow window, at the woman who’d tried to kill him two months ago and now stood close enough to feel his heartbeat through his shirt.
"Now I want considerably more than I used to let myself think about," he said.
Her breath caught, and she pressed closer, the particular vulnerability she reserved only for him now, and for a moment the danger circling both of their lives, Ashcroft and the Wardens and whatever unnamed agent had killed her mother, all felt smaller than the simple fact of standing together in a borrowed room in a hostile city.
A sharp knock at the door broke the moment, urgent and insistent, and Selene stepped back reluctantly as Ryuji crossed to answer it.
A palace guard stood in the corridor, formal and grim.
"Lord Volkris. Princess Selene. His Majesty requests your presence immediately. Commander Voss has arrived at the palace, and his report cannot wait until morning."